Archive for the Yuri Anime Category


Okazu Top Yuri Anime of 2019

December 27th, 2019

Hello and welcome to the 2019 Edition of the end-of-year lists here on Okazu! <pausing for applause> As usual, I will be splitting the lists of things I consider notable, interesting, worth mentioning into three. We begin, as we always begin with anime of the year that I consider worth noting. Also as usual, I will be bending the laws of relativity around words like “anime” “year” and “worth.” ^_^ I’ll do my best to note where and/or how you can watch this series on the list. Because it is possible this year, every single series on the list is available legitimately streaming and/or with an English-language release on DVD or Blu-ray.

These are all inherently my opinion and may therefore necessarily not reflect yours. ^_^ I invite you to write your top lists in the comments! I’d love to see what you consider best of the year.

 

Honorable Mention: Devilman Crybaby

This was explicitly a 2018 series, but I did not watch it until 2019, so could not include it last year, which was a huge failure on my part. Oh well. ^_^

Devilman Crybaby is also not “Yuri” per se, but it is queer as fuck and arguably the best anime I watched all year.

So here we are, starting off with this collaboration for Go Nagai and Masaaki Yuasa in one of the finest anime I have ever seen. Devilman Crybaby is a masterwork and deserves recognition for its mastery.

Streaming on Netflix.

 

 

 

Revue Starlight

It’s not as Yuri as I’d hoped, but there’s plenty of Yuri drama in between what is largely incoherent plot points. But who needs coherence when you have songs! and fights! and a giraffe!

For Futaba and anyone not Kaoruko, for Banana and Junna and above all, for Maya and Claudine, this series definitely deserves a place here.

Streaming on HIDIVE, coming out in 2020 on “home video” as they say, from Sentai Filmworks.

 

 

Steven Universe

I know and you know that this is not anime. It is, however so *deeply* inspired by anime that I hope I don’t even need to mention that it’s a child of Revolutionary Girl Utena, it’s just that obvious.

It tells us deeply difficult stories in a way that actually address all of the problematic bits, and it give us multiple queer characters seen from multiple angles. Both allies and enemies are sympathetic and unsympathetic in turn.  And it gave us so much music that gets stuck in my head. The series climax was brilliant, the movie finale was a Takarazuka tribute and “Future” gave us time to consider where we go from here. As long as there’s a Steven Universe. It’ll quite likely end up here on my Top list eventually. ^_^

Broadcast on Cartoon Network, streaming on Amazon Prime, available on DVD.

 

 

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

Yep, also not an anime. But super duper gay, so yeah, it’s on here. It’s a little darker, a lot more complex than kid’s cartoons were in my youth, but the gay characters’ relationships are noted as such. There’ll be no segment of fandom trying to rewrite what they are told here – Netossa and Spinarella are a couple and so are Bow’s parents and that is that. I genuinely love how I am not the target audience for this series and how very obviously little kids are, without the tiresome blatant marketing + faux morality that was foisted upon cartoons I grew up with.

She-Ra and the Princess of Power is a damn fine animated series and you should at least give it a try.

Streaming on Netflix, available on DVD.

 

 

Sailor Moon Super S

Upon watching the Sailor Moon SuperS Special, one might find oneself inclined to become very gay indeed. (Also one might wonder about the ferociousness of Michiru without Haruka to keep her tempered.) For such a short special, it packs a really gay punch. And this is the first time its ever had an official English-language release!

SuperS starts off with a surprising amount of queerness, but it all gets set aside for the second of Chibi-Usa’s questionable love choices. Nonetheless, the SuperS Special makes this whole season worth existing and is the sole reason that it is on this list.

Streaming on Viz.com, available on Blu-ray from Viz Media.

 

 
 

Sailor Moon Stars

Where SuperS starts off queer, but ends back in boring old straightsville, Sailor Moon Stars starts queer and just keeps on going for a long, long while. It has the largest collection of non-cis and not-straight characters of all the seasons and Haruka and Michiru get some pretty intimate lines between them. When you remember that this is a 25 year old series for children, and you reevaluate some of their scenes, you might feel at least a little bad for those folks positive in their conviction that they were not women and not in love. Because they are so obviously, definitely two women in love any argument to the contrary seems utterly ridiculous.

For at long last, giving us the best possible version of Stars, Viz gets two thumbs up and a place in this year’s top three.

Streaming on Viz.com, available on DVD and Blu-ray Viz Media.

 

 

Kase-san and Morning Glories

It was sweet, it was charming, it was beautifully, lovingly animated. And now that it is available in English as a sub and a dub, it’s one of the best buys of the year! Yamada, who loves plants and struggles quietly with her sense of self-worth, and Kase-san, a beloved star athlete of the school, fall in love and it’s all…delightful. They have things to work through, and things they need to say out loud and things that they need to do for themselves, but they are there for each other, moving forward in life and love, together.

Their story is ongoing, but this anime can be watched as is without any explanation as a slice of two lives that are coming together as one.

Available on Blu-ray from Sentai Filmworks.

 

The Kase-san OVA has been my #1 of the year before, and I honestly expected it to be again this year, but then some things happened. First, something old and wonderful came back to us after years of being obscure.

 

Go Nagai’s The Devil Lady

A bit of a late entry, because I had no idea it had come back into circulation, but Go Nagai’s The Devil Lady, the early 2000’s ADV (now Section 23) release of Devilman Lady is….fantastically gay and deeply Yuri. It’s violent, and trashy, as all Nagai works are, and it’s full of mutating people and death and misery and sexual desire and even love.

In a year when queer horror is having the renaissance it deserves, and in Go Nagai’s 55th anniversary of his debut year, I can’t think of anything that makes me happier than to see one of my absolute favorites come back into the limelight. Fingers crossed for a license of the remastered Devilman Lady which ought to be out next year for a 20th anniversary. (And I’ve already asked Seven Seas to consider the manga which was deeply fucked up. ^_^)

Streaming on Amazon Prime.

 

When it comes to “something happened,” my number one pick of the year doubled down.

 

Bloom Into You

The first thing that happened was that – very unusually – the anime really added layers of depth to the manga and ended up being better than the source material.

With insightful voice acting in both English and Japanese, the anime took a few early volumes of the manga and made them seem far more compelling than the comic had. That’s rare in and of itself.

But what really catapulted this series into the top spot was that the home release actually fixed the problems with the broadcast/streaming animation, and added in a pile of physical extras on top of that. For once, it was really worth getting a Premium box set.

Considering that the story is chock-a-block full of typical Yuri tropes, the fact that the Bloom Into You Premium box set from Sentai Filmworks/Section 23 is so incredibly good, it is my number one Yuri anime pick of the year.

Streaming on HIDIVE, available on Blu-ray.

We didn’t have a lot of Yuri anime this year, but what we had was pretty amazing! Next up, the unbelievably difficult Yuri Manga list. (Holy cow there was a lot of good Yuri manga this year.)





Yuri Anime: Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition, Part 1, Disk 1 (English)

December 24th, 2019

While at AnimeNYC, I took the opportunity to indulge myself a bit and buy myself a few presents. The Bloom Into You Premium Box Set (for which I believe one more review is due, since I watched the dub) was the first of my early holiday gifts to self and the Sailor Moon Stars Limited Edition was the second. Viz had a lovely booth set up and I was able to get the Limited Edition Blu-Ray Combo Pack for Part 1 and Part 2 and a neat little box for them, as well as the infamously misprinted booklet (I’ve already asked for my copy of the fixed version ^_^) and a pile of fetching art cards. Additionally, the set comes with a decorative box for both halves of the season and was handed over in one of Viz’s colorful Sailor Moon tote bags, this one purple with the silhouette of Eternal Sailor Moon on one side and her locket on the other. All very satisfying.

And so, for the first time in a number of years, I sat down to watch the first six episodes of Sailor Moon Stars Part 1, Disk 1, the fifth and final season, in its first-ever official western release.

As soon as the first notes of either the OP or ED start up, I get teary. In part because they are both deeply depressing songs. ^_^ Go ahead, look at the lyrics, see what I mean.

This first disk covers the best part of the Stars season, in my opinion, as Neherenia is freed from her prison and vows revenge against the White Moon Princess. This is not theg ood part…the good part is that we spend a lot of this arc with the Senshi. First we see Hotaru  growing up (at an accelerated rate) with Michiru, Haruka and Setsuna and later, Saturn gets a non-dying role protecting Chibi-Usa. I also very much enjoy the scenes where the Outers inspire the Inners to be even better at what they do. If I had been writing the series, it is quite likely I would have spent half the arc with this kind of thing.

Sailor Moon is able to save Mamoru and the other Senshi and, by extension, the Earth, once again. With two disks to go, we will finally be getting the Three Lights/Starlights and I know that most folks are poised to finally see them. I’m fairly alone in not liking them, for reasons we will discuss when we get there.

Right now, I just want to wallow a bit at how frickin’ gay Haruka and Michiru are in these six episodes. The gloves were off, clearly, as Michiru teases the heck out of her butchy partner. I rejoiced at how touchy they are, as well. Watching this disk, it boggles the mind that anyone ever insisted that they were not lovers, or if they were, Haruka had to be a man. But then, I suppose if the *.*gaters weren’t obsessed with Star Wars or whatever, we’d be having that argument all over again today. Instead, we get to smile and nod at Michiru when she tells Haruka that she could stare like this all day as she looks at her lover. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 4 In my memory, I thought this was some of the best art in the series. I was wrong.
Story – Despite being a reprise, it was not boring. Short, sharp and some of the best character writing so far
Characters – 9 I love the interaction between the Outers and Inners.
Yuri – 9
Service – 5 someone really had a thing for upskirting Jupiter

Overall – 8

My interest in this series effectively ends here, with just a few moments sprinkled through the story, but we still will have a lot to talk about including, eventually, my thoughts about the Starlights and what exists of the plot and how to rewrite it to make sense.





Yuri Anime: Kase-San and Morning Glories OVA (English), Guest Review by Eric P.

December 18th, 2019

Welcome to another Guest Review Wednesday here on Okazu. Thanks to our Okazu Patrons, we welcome back Guest Reviewer Eric P who is going to take a look at the Section 23 release of Kase-san and Morning Glories. Take it away Eric!

Kase-San and Morning Glories OVA, the high school love story between shy Yamada and her athlete girlfriend Kase, seemed to be a fairly big deal when it came out, with much love and acclaim. So, whichever western publisher would license this title, one would expect them to be well aware of its beloved status and treat its release accordingly, including a high-quality English audio track should they produce one. Kase-San was picked up by Sentai Filmworks/Section 23 , who seemed very much aware of the OVA’s importance.

Yamada’s voice is provided by Bryn Apprill, who also did Historia from Attack on Titan. Upon first listen it seems her voice gives Yamada a stereotypically cute/shy sound, but then I switch back and forth between the English and Japanese audio, and realize it was meant to be reflective of the original seiyuu. Some may still criticize it for trying a little too hard to stay faithful in that regard, and the moments where Yamada shrieks may be a bit much for those that find English shrieks being higher-pitched than the original Japanese bothersome. Yet these are just stressing nitpicks on my part, because by no means is it bad acting and Bryn still fitted the character. Her voice is most soothing when she narrates, and there’s something about the way she says “I think this might be a big deal” as she waits for Kase to come to her house that I felt was well-captured.

The one lead voice guaranteed not to give mixed feelings is Kase-san herself, portrayed by Morgan Berry, who also did Tokaku from Riddle Story of Devil and Dragon Panther from Cutie Honey Universe. While not the exact sound match-up to the original seiyuu like Yamada, she provides a fitting tomboy-type voice that emanates coolness within the movie’s first few moments. But when it comes to Yamada and their progressing relationship, she near-perfectly conveys vulnerable flustering and stumbling, countering her coolness with realistic adorableness.

The only other stand-out character is Yamada’s friend, Mikawa, voiced by Apphia Yu, who also did Tamako Arai from Barakamon. She gives Mikawa a suitable vibe of someone who is gearing up to be the life of the party, and all other additional/background voices making up the OVA’s overall mix come together as a natural-sounding whole. In the end, it is apparent the ADR cast and crew of Sentai poured their loving efforts into honoring this title. Even if one watches it in English just one time, the dub further serves its purpose in helping free the viewers’ eyes a bit and better take in the artistry that compliments the mutually lovely story.

The story itself is admittedly nothing groundbreaking. But even as a simple young romance tale, it is easy to recognize what made this OVA resonate so much is that it did everything it did well, with the right mix of direction, writing, art, music, what-have-you. It says just about everything it needs to say in a single self-contained hour, whether one has read or will read the manga or not. And because it also happens to be a same-sex love story, the focus relationship is depicted in such a casual, sweet and honest way without any “mandatory” sleazy stereotypes to bog it down. Yes, as I wrote the previous sentence I am thinking about that other OVA director Takuya Sato happened to do later that tried passing itself off as a spiritual follow-up to Kase-San. In a way it strangely makes me all the more appreciative that something like Kase-san and Morning Glories exists, and anyone could appreciate everything it offers any time they choose to sit down for one simple hour of pleasantness.

Ratings:

Dub—9.5
Blu-Ray—7*
OVA Overall—10

*Although a Sentai title, it is not yet available on HIDIVE as of this review posting. And Sentai’s basic blu-ray does not come with any bonus features outside the promo trailers and English dub. I would have thought Kase-San would have earned a Premium release of some kind, and nowhere on the disc will one find the Pony Canyon music video that started everything, which was surprising and curious enough on its own. Regardless, it is still worth owning if you are an English dub fan or are at least open to them. Or if you have not yet bought the original Amazon Japan release, then Sentai’s domestic blu-ray is still a more economical purchase to help add this to any Yuri collector’s library.

Erica here: Thank you very much, Eric for this look at the US release of this OVA! At less than $20 on Amazon, it might not be a premium release, but it’s worth every penny. ^_^

 




Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You Premium Box Set, Disk 2 (English)

December 16th, 2019

Bloom Into You Premium Box Set ends as it began, with shockingly good visuals and voice acting that elevates the story beyond the original manga.

Disk 2 might appear anti-climactic for those of us watching for Sayaka, but it is in these final episodes that the seeds of the rest of the story are sown. We are there to witness, you might say, the moment when Yuu’s promise turns into a lie. She might not know it yet, but we can see the moment she falls in love.

The DVD “extras” are basic. Clean beginning and endings for your Anime Music Videos (seriously, that’s why those are there, it’s a relic from “back in the day”) and promo material for other Sentai properties are the only content extras.

BUT, in order to do a complete review, (and to do a test run for the family get-together next week,) I made Rei’s cheesecake recipe. I wasn’t sure we had a springform pan and ultimately, we ended up throwing the one we had out, because it was degrading and made the cake taste weird. It might well have come with this house for all we know. ^_^;

The recipe was straightforward enough. It calls for cake flour, which gave the cake a lighter profile than the thicker cheesecakes I’m used to, which I actually liked. It wasn’t very sweet, which I also liked and the lemon functioned the same way sour cream does on Hungarian cheesecake, to cut the sweetness…and give it flavor.

Even packed down, the crust was really loose and crumbly. We’ll have to compact it a lot more next time, since we did not use cookies, we used graham crumb and it was super crumbly and dry. (Although, overnight in the fridge firmed it up considerably.)

The instructions say to leave the cake in the oven until completely cool, but this really overcooked it. Next time, we’ll take it out at half an hour. It’s going to crack no matter what. You could use a bain-marie to keep it moist but does *anyone* really care if the cheesecake cracks? Seriously. Eat the damn cake.

The flavor was very good. As I said, it had a slightly cakier texture, which meant it wasn’t as cloying or rich. It’s a really pretty good recipe as cheesecakes go. I gave half to cake to neighbors with a cautionary “It’s a 6.5/7 on a scale of 10.”  I don’t bake, so for my first cheesecake ever, it was pretty successful. I’ll try again next week with some small changes. ^_^

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 1
Yuri – 3

Overall – 9

Bloom Into You Premium Blu-Ray Box Set, is a feast for any Yuri fan. With dessert.





Yuri Anime: Bloom Into You Premium Box Set, Disk 1 (English)

December 10th, 2019

Welp, I’m convinced. For once in my entire life, I feel completely justified in buying a premium box set Blu-Ray edition of anything. Sentai Filmworks’ Bloom Into You Premium Box Set was totally worth the money I paid for it.

Bloom Into You is based on the manga of the same name by Nakatani Nio, which is available in English from Seven Seas. The story follows first-year highschooler Koito Yuu as she becomes involved in Student Council activities and involved in an intense, and sometimes confusing, relationship with the Student Council President, Nanami Touko.

Yuu becomes interested in Touko initially over a perceived shared inability/unwillingness/lack of desire in regards to romance, but almost immediately Touko confesses that she has fallen in love with Yuu. How Yuu feels about Touko is the main part of the story, but by no means is it the only thing going on.  Council Vice President Sayaka has her own feelings about Touko to deal with.

You may remember I spoke to the fine folks at Sentai Filmworks at AnimeNYC 2019. We had a terrific conversation and while I was there, I bought this for myself as a present. When Bloom Into You anime streamed on HIDIVE last winter, I subscribed just to be able to watch it. And generally, I found it to be worth it, with a few small exceptions. Those exceptions became relevant once again…as they have, very unusually, been addressed.

It was inexplicable to me that the animation for the scene in which Touko confesses to Yuu be so seriously lacking. This moment, which comes early on, is one of two key scenes of the entire first disk. For it to have been so flat and lifeless was intolerable. Imagine my surprise then, when that scene was done beautifully for this disk. I was beginning to think I had imagined it, but an episode or two later, when Yuu reminisces about the moment, the flashback was not corrected and it was, as I had remembered, cheaply done. It was gratifying to see both the scene fixed and that my memory in this regard was not wrong. ^_^

The higher definition visuals also mean the backgrounds look breathtakingly detailed and if the character animation had not been improved it would have made them look just that much worse. There are still scenes that distinctly look like the B-Team did the art, sometimes, merely an angle or a part of a scene, and it can be a little bit disconcerting. But overall the art is much improved. So that all gets a big thumbs up from me.

The second change of note was the eyes. We spend a *lot* of time in hyper close-up in anime these days, which is really just a waste, since eyes are rarely animated that well. In this anime in particular I remember bitching about the eyes being so oddly drawn. That too has been corrected for the Blu-ray. We still spend way too much time staring at eyeballs, but at least they look better.

Disk 1 contains episodes 1-9 of this 13 episode series, in dub and sub. I have not yet watched the dub, but plan on doing so for Disk 2. Disk 1 contains the episode where Miyako tags Sayaka, she confides in the older woman and we get insight into the VP of the Student Council. I wanted to watch that in original, before I gave the American VA a chance. ^_^

But what really makes this set stand out are the physical extras.

To begin with, the box the set comes in is nice enough, although I have always felt that on their own collector’s boxes are not worth a jacked up price. What sets this set apart is that it has a pleasant assortment of physical extras. The physical extras include a booklet of storyboards for the OP and ED, an attractive booklet of key animation scenes, character references, interviews with staff and cast. It’s a book I actually want to read. Extras include some double-sided art cards, the script for the Student Council Play and Yuu’s older sister’s cheesecake recipe, which I will be making this year for my wife’s family Christmas get-together, in the interest of a complete review. I’ll let you know how it goes. ^_^ Both the recipe and the DVD come in an inner box with series art.

Ratings:

Art – 9 Visibly better when its better!
Story – 8
Characters – 9
Service – 3 especially towards the end as Touko is more aggressive physically
Yuri – 9

Overall – 9

A really nice variety of physical extras, sub and dub of an anime series that improves upon the manga in a number of ways and a better visual experience over the streaming version, all of which justify putting this set on your wish list!